


In Lieu of the Planned

by Demytasse



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Childhood Friends, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Hate to Love, Kissing, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Romantic Fluff, Shizaya - Freeform, Unrequited Love, more hinted hate to love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-02 07:33:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12722313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demytasse/pseuds/Demytasse
Summary: Shinra asks Izaya to help him with his marriage proposal to Celty, but it winds up helping Izaya out more.—"I suppose it would be easy to assume the role of an obnoxious doctor. I would like to think I understand his character well enough given the time I've had to deal with his selfish shenanigans.""Of course, of course. And in that case, I'll take on my beautiful angel's persona, waiting to be wooed by the love of her multiple lifetimes.” He clasped his hands together while he batted his eyes. “Oh Shinra~ whisk me away to paradise with your declaration of love!""...don't make this more unpleasant than it already is."





	In Lieu of the Planned

**Author's Note:**

> I have a weakness...and it’s unconventional Shizaya proposals. I stg this is not the first proposal I have come up with. Proooobably isn’t the last time I will be writing one. *groans*
> 
> Question in the bottom notes.

They sat at an empty dining room table mid-afternoon. Nothing was prepared to set the mood, no details were tended to, and no one of importance was invited to witness. Their surroundings lacked any form of intimacy, but then again the situation didn’t necessarily call for it to be, at least not this time.

An over-practiced performance was repeated with choppy movements of an amateur actor reading from cue cards, his sterile white coat tail billowed out behind him while it caught the draft from an exaggerated bow. Softened eyes peeked above the frame of oversized glasses while he gazed up from a respectful tip of his head. The man was brimming with hope for the answer he desired; after all, the proposal was long overdue. He grabbed the other’s hand from the one that sat before him and delicately lifted it to rest in his palm, hesitating before laying a kiss on its surface. Air was sharply let into his lungs to prepare himself to speak.

"I have loved you ever since I set my eyes on you. Will you do me the honor of marrying me?"

Clicks of fingernails swiftly tapped across a glass surface and spoke in place of a verbal response. The message was short and took only a few seconds before a cellphone screen was revealed with a deliberate shove in the man's face to read.

_/No./_

Shinra's expression fell flat, "Come on Izaya! Take this seriously!"

Mildly perturbed, the doctor removed himself from the floor and collapsed into a dining room chair that had been left angled outward. His hips slumped dramatically forward an inch away from the edge of the seat. He exhaled his held breath.  
  
The informant sat comfortably across from his nerve ridden friend, an easy smile reflected determination to pester him. He idly spun his cellphone between his thumb and forefinger.

"It's difficult for me to put on a convincing act of your headless girlfriend, Shinra."

The aforementioned peeled off the chair’s support to meet Izaya with a rebuttal. "Oh come on. In all the years you have been observing and psychoanalyzing _humans_ , you can't muster up some kind of believable response?"

"Hmm, that's the problem, she's not human. She is unreadable and impossible to predict." His arms extended to either side of his body in a natural shrug.

"As if you don't have any experience with monsters. Going by your normal definition, don't you and Shizuo fall into that category?" Shinra innocently jabbed at Izaya's weakness with a smile.

"That's different. I'm closer to a god than anything, and of course Shizu-chan is a monster," he disconnected his gaze, a wrinkle to his eye accentuated his smile, "but he deviated from being human, as opposed to Celty who strove to act more human. One I can respect over the other, at least in this specific case."

Shinra adjusted his glasses to sit higher on the bridge of his nose. "Oh ok, that makes sense now, thank you for clarifying."

"You are aware that your mocking doesn't have any effect on me, right?"

He hummed, "I'm sure it does on occasion."

The dark haired brunet switched his crossed legs as an indication of back-tracking the conversation. He cleared his throat.  
  
“Back on point: you can't just repeat the same declaration of love you've been burdening her with since middle school and proceed directly into asking for her hand in marriage. That's underwhelming, even for you."

"Hm, you think she would turn that down then?" His eyebrows sunk with disappointment.

An illuminated phone screen tilted back up in presentation, "I mean she already did."

Shinra dismissively brushed his hand, "In that case, Casanova, what would you suggest I do?"

"You're actually willing to listen to me instead of us cycling through your multiple failures?"

Shinra nodded with enthusiasm.

Izaya stood, resting his hand on the back of his chair he stretched out his muscles in teasing preparation of his performance.  
  
"I suppose it would be easy to assume the role of an obnoxious doctor. I would like to think I understand his character well enough given the time I've had to deal with his selfish shenanigans."

"Of course, of course. And in that case, I'll take on my beautiful angel's persona, waiting to be wooed by the love of her multiple lifetimes.” He clasped his hands together while he batted his eyes. “Oh Shinra~ whisk me away to paradise with your declaration of love!"

"...don't make this more unpleasant than it already is. I don’t think I can wash my hand enough to forget the feeling of your lips on it, thank you." Izaya's eyes turned deadpan in immediate regret. He shook his hand in emphasis.  

"Also I’d like to point out how I roleplayed your 'angel' better than you with only one word, where as you had a sentence and already messed it up. Stop talking." He drew a finger across his throat to represent her missing head.

The doctor let his words go mute while attentive doe eyes met Izaya's.

It was off-putting having to pseudo propose to his long-term friend while speaking in a fluid, Shinra-esque, soliloquy. He already committed himself to the task, though, and he didn't wish to disappoint himself by backing down to a challenge.

Izaya knew his natural suggestion would revolve around snarky jokes and bad advice. As amusing the thought of sabotaging the other was, Izaya moved onto a better strategy. He caught a glance at Shinra as he passed time by swaying to either side of his chair impatiently. His mind seemed too lost on the multiple outcomes of his proposal to notice Izaya's uneasy hesitation, which was just as well.  
  
The informant only saw Celty as his courier, so writing her a love ballad, let alone seeing Shinra’s replacement reactions to it, made this task unnecessarily complicated. Perhaps it was more fitting to remove the awkward interactions by turning away, closing his eyes, or maybe picturing someone else entirely. The latter seemed most optimal to help stir his creativity.

Imagination helped cater the scene to be more in line with Izaya's interests. Chocolate locks turned golden blond and excited fidgets were canceled out by a lackadaisical recline, a cigarette rested between lazy digits. His sleeves were rolled to the crook of his elbows while an undone bow tie hung around his neck resembling his after work habit of dressing down. A faint scent of tobacco was summoned from his memory that Izaya could swear he could almost breathe in. The vision he created calmed his disjointed thoughts and brought him to a coherent mindset.

There was a loving turn of his lips at the thought of performing for his partner rather than the alternative. Inspired by the illusion of his love accidentally had Izaya dip into the well of his own planned poetry instead of creating a clumsy idea for his friend’s use.

"We were introduced at an influential time of our teenage years. I was instantaneously entranced by your deviance from normalcy that contrasted your beauty against a sea of grey. My immediate attraction killed my ability to see my life with anyone else and your preemptive rejection to my interest failed to sway me. My unconscious made a decision despite my knowledge to sequester myself from intimacy with others to allow for a doubtful potential of us."

A padded shuffle tamped a circle upon previously plush carpet in front of the table he had deserted. Izaya blocked out his vision with closed lids. The imagined living room centered on his ex-bartender whose careless smirk accompanied a drag of smoke from his cigarette. The harsh overhead lighting was softened by a golden gaze that beckoned him to continue.

"I fought the notion of ‘love at first sight’ to stave off the obvious gravity between us. It became foolish to deny that the unique waltz we danced around our feelings was drawing us closer together instead of further apart. Our presentation of love was unconventional, but it spoke of a deeper connection than just simple infatuation."

Concentration drew the blond's attention away from the burning orange stub that now reached his fingers. The sharp alert to his senses had him shake his hand and curse under his breath. Izaya chuckled, remembering the endearing consequence his partner often met when he paid attention to him.

"Our relationship gradually turned away from our repetitious tirade. I began to understand why I created a farce of equilateral love instead of affection for one; I had already given my heart to my enemy and I needed to protect myself from harsh rejection. Even though I resisted at first I realized that you enriched my life in more ways than just a rival that gave me a challenge, but you riled passion in my soul and piqued my heart's interest. You became the peace to my chaos."

His partner's expression was stuck with a generic pleasant smile plastered to his face. Izaya was unsure of the reaction he would receive at this point, but he needed to proceed forward rather than ruminate over frivolous details of a figment's body language. The conflict was hastily settled by the formation of tears that created thin streams down reddened cheeks, despite how cliché it was.

"You're the human anomaly I stumbled upon and the monster I never asked for, but I found the only stalemate I could accept eternally being unresolved.”

"Chase me to the altar, will you, Shizuo?"

Izaya’s fluid pace stopped in front of Shinra; his vision came back to reality and put him in view of the wistful smile his friend gave him from his propped head in hand.

Dark brows furrowed. He assumed Shinra would supply him with a snarky comment about how he didn't know him to be that romantic, or at least gush over how it would work perfectly for his bride to be. His arms crossed in wait of Shinra’s assessment.

"It's amazing how similar both of our obsessions became. I guess we rubbed off on each other."

Shinra's epiphany seemed out of place for Izaya's offered assistance. But when a lanky figure adorned in a two toned uniform stumbled into his peripheral he realized he had slipped the wrong context and name into his monologue. He grimaced; he accidentally proposed to Shinra in place of Shizuo.

Shizuo’s typical bartender's apparel was dressed up with a flustered red accent for the occasion, his shoulders caving in while he uncomfortably stood in front of Izaya. Behind the others, Celty slinked out from a wall’s cover with her dark smoke billowed out in dense bashful clouds. It appeared that the serendipitous arrival of the monster duo placed them in the perfect situation for eavesdropping. Shizuo had been shoved into the room at the end against his volition, looking appropriately out of sorts.

The couple tried their best to look at one another without an awkward undertone, which failed each time they adverted bashful eyes from the other.

"Yes." Shizuo looked down to the floor for a fifth time while he rubbed the back of his head.

"’Yes’ to what now?" Izaya raised a brow.

Shizuo responded silently with a raised left hand and pointed to an empty ring finger.

"You can't just spy on my and Shinra's conversation, barge into the room, and answer a question I never asked of you, Shizu-chan.”

Shizuo jolted his attention back to Izaya with a perturbed frown wrinkling his forehead. Off to the sidelines, Shinra mimed a chuckle with a raised hand to his mouth in a learned behavior from the panicked woman whom he wrapped an arm around.

The room filled with loud reverb. "Are you saying all of that was a lie then, Izaya?"

"I didn't say that. I was just here to offer up advice for Shinra and his proposal. Oops," he shrugged at Shinra with a tongue protruding a smile and was met with an exasperated sigh and an accentuated puff of smoke.

Izaya addressed Shizuo again. "Perhaps that was all it was, Shizu-chan."

Shizuo's annoyance turned less hostile, "Oh really?"

"Mmhm."

"You don't want to marry me."

"I also didn't say that."

"Prove it then."

Izaya sighed halfheartedly, "what exactly am I proving?"

"Prove to me that you want to spend the rest of your life with me."

Shizuo rummaged through his upper vest pocket to unearth a petite velvet bag that he emptied into his hand. He eased into a crouch on a single knee, a ring held up high in offer. He was focused, but his hand trembled with unprepared fear.

"I, uh, have had this idea for months now and carried the ring with me looking for the right moment. I guess I should have just planned it."

A flush rose to Izaya's cheeks as his left hand was taken into Shizuo's. He knew what was coming, but his nerves caused his heart to beat heavy as he failed to wait calmly. His unconscious happiness pulled at his lips, but he tried to coolly battle it causing his mouth to hold back a cheesy smile. Just moments earlier he was calm while reciting a proposal and now he was a blubbering mess unable to control his emotions.

"Izaya, you are obnoxious, difficult as hell, and you piss me off more than anyone ever could. But without you I would lose my purpose..." he coughed uncomfortably, "um...you know what the question is."

Izaya's answer should have been on the tip of his tongue, but he was overwhelmed by the notion that they had simultaneously been on the same page without talking to each other about it. He desperately tried to prepare an overly verbose response worthy of his standards and reputation, but only one word seemed fitting.

"Yes."

Shizuo beamed while glancing up to meet his partner's eyes before he focused on slipping the ring on his finger with shaky precision.

"I know it's not much, but I saved up to buy it back in February or something."

"...you started saving for an engagement ring the month we got together."

"Yeah?"

"You're unbelievable. And here I thought I had the idea first. I guess I will have to one up you with your ring--"

Izaya was silenced with a merger of their lips. Light glinted off bright platinum as Izaya guided his palms to rest on Shizuo's dampened cheeks. Tears were wiped away with his thumbs.

Shinra, and a reluctant Celty, offered applause that was indeterminately sardonic.

"Alright, now that you have successfully spoiled my proposal AND stole the spotlight, I'm kicking you out, Izaya."

Roused from their kiss, Izaya turned his head in response with a sly pout; he kept his connection with Shizuo, if not drew him in more. "You want the happy couple to leave before we get to celebrate?"

"Of course not! Shizuo can stay. It’s only you that needs to leave." An extended finger pointed towards the exit as he tilted his head adorned with a smile Izaya could only read as annoyed.

"Ha. I suppose we'll /both/ be taking our leave then." Izaya's arm hooked around Shizuo who struggled to shake off his elated haze from a moment earlier.

"Hmm, that's a shame. I was going to ask my lovely fiancé to cook a fabulous engagement dinner for us." He jubilantly clasped Celty's hand in his.

The dullahan’s shoulders jolted in surprise. She swiftly took up her cellphone, almost dropping it in a flurry of emotions. A desperate dance of fingers tapped across the screen typed a message that only Shinra could see. He responded so quickly that it was debatable if Shinra already knew her message through some form of telepathy he had developed for her.

"Ah!! I was so wrapped up in my disappointment that I almost missed my opportunity to ask!" Shinra whined.

When the doctor proceeded to take a knee, Izaya rolled his eyes and began a trek to the front door with Shizuo in tow who was struggling to watch.

"I have loved you ever since I set my eyes on you. Celty, will you do the honor of marrying me?"

Izaya snorted, "he added her name at least. Shizu-chan, get the door for me on the way out." A dry tone flavored his request.

Shizuo silently nodded as he witnessed his two friends exchange an embrace making him ignorant of Izaya's intent for him to unhinge the door in haste. The informant's played up annoyance was sated by slight splintering of wood in the aftermath.

"Welcome to the joy of being unfairly kicked out by Shinra. Think of the transferred abuse as an early wedding gift for my fiancé." Izaya chuckled to himself.  
  
Shizuo leaned in to rest his forehead on his partner's and absorbed the comfort of his arms engulfing him. The newly engaged couple stood in the hallway unaware of anything outside on each other’s presence as their thoughts drifted away from the uncertainty of their future and were replaced with calming reassurance. It was years of pent up exhaustion that had finally unraveled into peace of mind.

"His loss. My gain."

Izaya purred with content, "I'm glad you spied in on my fake proposal today."

"I'm glad you accepted mine."

Izaya sighed at the thought of planning a wedding. "Now we just have to say 'I do'."

"I do."

Izaya shoved Shizuo, "not now, you idiot."

"Fine. How about ‘I will’ then?" he huffed.

Izaya flushed and had to look away, "you're too matter of fact, you lovesick fool. I already know you will."

"And do you?"

"What is this, the actual ceremony? And do you, Izaya, take Shizuo to be your lawfully wedded husband?" He laughed.

"...well? What's your answer, Izaya?"

"I do…"

Shizuo’s broadened his smile more than it should be capable.

"...not need to answer that until we have an ordained minister. I'm guessing the suspense of my answer will kill you, but you need to work on your patience anyway."

Shizuo’s expression flipped to an annoyed frown. “Izaya...you have worked against my patience enough over the years. Humor me for once."

"Perhaps that's only the perception of an impatient person."

Izaya’s cocky retort hung in the air while Shizuo bounced an idea around in his head. Sudden action of the blond took the other off guard as he was whisked off his feet and slung over a shoulder. They ascended down the hallway with brisk pace.

"Hey, hey. You couldn't possibly be taking us to the courthouse just so you can get an answer now?" His pointer finger jabbed at Shizuo’s head multiple times.

"I _do_ not know what you're talking about, flea!"

A sigh that could be read as humored or exasperated left his lips, "well, I suppose 'fiancé' never rolled off the tongue for me. Alas, our picture perfect wedding will never be."

"This… You and me, is perfect enough." The confidently sweet whisper was meant just for them despite it not being necessary in their deserted surroundings.

Izaya didn’t expect an emotional day. He thought he knew what would come of his visit, but was not prepared to deal with this, so he was thankful that he faced away from Shizuo's view of his honest tears that rolled down to meet his easy smile. Shizuo rubbed at his leg in comfort when he heard a few muffled sniffs and a silent hiccup. This was perfect enough for him too.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, I am seriously debating a second, shorter, chapter from Shizuo and Celty’s side of Izaya’s proposal. Yes? Maybe?


End file.
